HM Treasury Hiring for Head of Pre-16 Education Job at London, England Full Time

About HM Treasury:

If you’re interested in making a difference to people’s lives across the country, the Treasury is the department for you! We sit at the centre of everything that the Government does and have provided advice on economic policy and decisions that affect the public finances throughout the country’s history. A Treasury career continues to offer an exciting opportunity to be part of the decision making that affects the whole of the UK.

Working at the heart of government, we collaborate with other departments to ensure public money is spent well and to drive strong and sustainable economic growth. Our work ranges from protecting customers through to the regulation of the financial sector, helping to reduce carbon emissions and creating a greener economy, supporting people across the country through the COVID 19 furlough scheme and Plan for Jobs as well as helping first time buyers buy their first home.

HM Treasury is proud of a diverse and inclusive work environment, committed to fairness and the promotion of equality of opportunity for all. We know that having a range of experiences, ways of working and thinking makes us a stronger organisation, better at developing policy that is reflective of the communities we serve. We embrace different views and experiences and value the fresh perspective that people from a variety of circumstances bring to the work we do. We welcome applications from candidates who have not previously worked for the Civil Service, mid- and late-career changers with transferrable skills, people from all backgrounds and circumstances regardless of disability, gender, age ethnicity, LGBT+ identity and socio-economic status.

The Darlington Economic Campus is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring people together across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important issues of the day.

HM Treasury in Darlington will be joined by the Department for International Trade, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Office for National Statistics, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Department for Education, Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport and the Competition and Markets Authority

About the Group:

Public Services Group

The Public Services Group is at the heart of the Treasury’s work to secure strong and sustainable public finances. We manage public spending of more than £250 billion across key public services and departments, including health, education, the police, the criminal justice system, local government, housing, defence and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

We do this by working with other government departments, ministers, and other Treasury teams to ensure that spending plans support high quality public services and provide value for money for the taxpayer.

Our roles offer a range of opportunities to work with senior leaders in other government departments, as well as helping to ensure the effective delivery of public services that so many people rely on.

About the team:

Education and Skills Team

The Education and Skills team is a high profile, friendly and supportive team with oversight of a range of areas – ranging from children’s social care and childcare through to schools, further education, and higher education. Our core role as a spending team is to advise Treasury ministers on education spending proposals, help the Department for Education to live within their budget, and work with DfE and other parts of the Treasury to ensure that we have an education and skills system which meets the needs of the future economy.

We are a team of around 20 people who put a strong emphasis on an inclusive and open culture that makes use of everyone’s talents! We are especially proud of our track record in helping our team members to develop and make the most of the opportunities available whilst being in the team.

Key Accountabilities:

This is a fantastic role leading the pre-16 half of the Education & Skills spending team, one of the most interesting and high-profile policy areas in public services and spending. We are looking for an individual who is confident at building and leading high performing, inclusive teams and who has strong interpersonal skills. This role will require you to work constructively with teams from other organisations (in particular the Department for Education) and to demonstrate good judgement to reach sensible outcomes when organisational objectives are in tension. You will have regular interaction with Ministers, Special Advisers, HMT senior officials and colleagues from across government, including No10.

We encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds, and actively promote and encourage flexible working arrangements across the organisation.

Specific key responsibilities are to:

1. Lead the pre-16 education side of the Education and Skills Team (E&S) (covering funding for early years, schools and children’s social care ), providing excellent management to three Range Es (one of whom works jointly across the whole team) and second signatory support to the Range Ds (one of whom is manager to a Range C) – with overall responsibility for a team that is currently 9 FTE. Demonstrate strong and effective dedication to the resilience, wellbeing and development of those you lead here – and to promoting equality of opportunity.

2. Contribute as part of the three-person Senior Management Team (SMT) to the successful running of E&S. This responsibility includes working across SMT to ensure that resources match work priorities (and vice versa); that the strategic approach the team takes is effective; and that the team is an excellent and positive place to work.

3. Lead the Treasury’s overall relationship with the Department for Education on areas relating to Schools (£45bn+ p.a.), Early Years and Children’s Social Care resource and capital funding. This includes ensuring DfE lives within its Spending Review settlement, including delivering on agreed programmes and reprioritising where necessary to reflect changed priorities. Your team members will lead on the detail of specific programmes, however the E2 role is essential in owning the overall relationship with the department and internal HMT colleagues and ensuring these remain collegiate and constructive. This will include showing good judgement and diplomacy skills where issues are politically contentious or organisational objectives are in tension.

4. Coordinate (with the post-16 education E2) the team’s preparations for fiscal events and other new administration priorities. This work is primarily run by the Range E Spending Principal – but brings in all the branches of the team. The E2s are essential in bringing the strategic picture together – including both fiscal and economic considerations; prioritising the work the team should focus on; and agreeing internal trade-offs.

For further background on the post, please contact the line manager Ellie Tack ([email protected]).

Required Skills, Experience and Behaviours:

The below criteria will be assessed in your application form.

The lead criterion is: 1. Leadership – ability to inspire and motivate others to deliver and succeed, while promoting team resilience, wellbeing and inclusion

If we receive large volumes of applications, we will conduct an initial sift on the first criterion only, which will usually be a behaviour. This may be an experience or technical skill, but only where critical to the position.

We will assess the below further criteria in your application form;

2. Strategic thinking (Seeing the Big Picture) – ability to understand how your role fits with wider team and organisational objectives and the political context and wider impacts – and make the links here effectively

3. Analytical skills (Making Effective Decisions) – ability to analyse a range of qualitative and quantitative information and evaluate evidence to provide good advice to Ministers on key issues

Candidate Guidance on Completing your Application Form

Where will we assess criteria across your application form.

• 
  Behaviours – these will be assessed individually with a 250-word statement per behaviour. The application form will indicate which behaviour is being assessed each time you provide a statement, and we are ideally looking for an example using the below STAR method to demonstrate this behaviour in line with the full criteria stated

In your statements, it is best to focus on one example in each section to allow you to provide enough detail in your answer and use all the words you have been allocated. Examples from a range of roles across your application will demonstrate that you have the skills, experience and behaviours we are looking for. We would also advise you to use examples that best meet the criteria, even if it is a few years old

How to Structure your Answer

Please use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) approach when writing your application answers.

• Situation – Describe the situation you found yourself in and what happened.
• Task – The Hiring Manager will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation that you found yourself in.
• Action – What actions did you take and how did you do it. Make sure to use “I”, not “we” to explain how your actions lead to a result.
• Result – Use facts and statistics to demonstrate the results that your actions produced. Explain whether it was a successful outcome, and if not, what you learned from the experience.

NOTES TO CANDIDATES

• Please refer to the candidate FAQ document which is a link on the job advert – this will provide you with guidance on completing the application form. Please contact [email protected] if you have any issue accessing this document
• At HM Treasury, to maximise diversity and inclusion within our workforce, we operate a fair, open and anonymous recruitment process. This means that the sift panel will only be able to assess you on the written evidence supplied in your application answers. They will not have access to personal information.
• You will be asked to provide some CV details during your application; however these will NOT be assessed during the process, but will be used to support discussions at interview – please ensure you put all information you would like to be scored against in your behaviour, experience and technical skill statements
• You will be assessed on your skills, experience and behaviours through the online application form When completing your application form, please outline how you meet the requirements as detailed in the ‘candidate assessment of skills and experience ‘section of this job description. This will give you the best chance to provide the evidence that the panel wants to assess. More guidance can be found here – completing you application
• If we receive a large number of applications, applications will be assessed initially against the lead criterion alone. You will then be assessed against the other criteria if you have met the minimum score on the first criterion.
• Find out more about how the Civil Service assesses candidates and uses Success Profiles (opens in a new window)
• Applications are not reviewed until the closing date has passed. You will be notified of the outcome of your application as soon as the recruitment panel has reviewed all the applications.

CANDIDATE GUIDANCE SUPPORT SESSION

We will be running an overview of Success Profiles and the STAR approach; top tips for the application and interview process and an opportunity to ask general questions around our 6 recruitment practices. If you would like to join the call, please use the link below.

Wednesday 24th August 2022 12:30 – 13:30

Click here to join the meeting

HIRING MANAGER DROP IN SESSION

There is an opportunity to attend a Drop-In session with the Hiring Manager to discuss the role in more detail. If you would like to join the call, please use the link below.

Wednesday 17th August 2022 11:00 – 11:45

Click here to join the meeting

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Leadership
• Making Effective Decisions
• Seeing the Big Picture

Flexible working arrangements

HM Treasury views flexible working as essential in enabling us to recruit and retain talented people, ensuring that they are able to enjoy a long-lasting career with us. All employees have the right to apply for flexible working and there are a range of options available including; working from home, compressed hours and job sharing. Additionally, we operate flexitime systems, allowing employees to take up to an additional 2 days off each month, providing you work enough hours to meet business need.

We also offer a generous maternity/ paternity and adoption leave package.

At HM Treasury we have an incredibly broad remit; our work touches every citizen of the country. So, it’s important our employees come from the widest possible range of backgrounds, bringing us the widest possible range of perspectives and ways of thinking. We are committed to ensuring that all staff are able to realise their potential and achieve a healthy work-life balance.

Job contact :

Name :
Ellie Tack
Email :
[email protected]

Recruitment team :

Email :
[email protected]